Across the nation

Posted: October 15, 2011 - 12:11am

BIRMINGHAM, Ala.

In a blow to Alabama’s toughest-in-the-nation immigration law, a federal appeals court sided with the Obama administration Friday when it blocked public schools from checking the immigration status of students.

The decision from the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals also said police can’t charge immigrants who are unable to prove their citizenship, but it let some of the law stand, giving supporters a partial victory. The decision was only temporary and a final ruling wasn’t expected for months, after judges can review more arguments.

Unlike crackdowns in other states, Alabama’s law was left largely in effect for about three weeks, long enough to frighten Hispanics and drive them away from the state. Construction businesses said Hispanic workers had quit showing up for jobs and schools reported that Latino students stopped coming to class.

NEW YORK

A magistrate judge in New York has recommended al-Qaida be assessed $9.3 billion for the damage done to properties and businesses in the Sept. 11 attacks.

Federal Magistrate Judge Frank Maas in a ruling Friday sent the recommendation to a district judge presiding over a lawsuit brought by several insurance companies.

The companies in 2003 sued various defendants, seeking damages for the 2001 terror attacks, which demolished the World Trade Center’s twin towers. Al-Qaida never responded to the lawsuit and was found in default in 2006. Maas determined the actual damages and then tripled them as allowed by law.

WASHINGTON

A second Bush administration gun-trafficking investigation has surfaced using the same controversial tactic for which congressional Republicans have been criticizing the Obama administration.

The tactic, called “gun walking,” is already under investigation by the Justice Department’s inspector general and by congressional Republicans, who have criticized the administration of Democratic President Barack Obama for letting it happen in an operation called “Fast and Furious.”

Emails obtained by The Associated Press show how in a 2007 investigation in Phoenix, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives — depending on Mexican authorities to follow up — let guns “walk” across the border in an effort to identify higher-ups in gun networks.

HELENA, Mont.

A 911 call captured two women’s voices saying, “Don’t do it,” and, “You took my husband,” before gunshots rang out in a shooting that left a man and a woman dead in a Helena apartment.

The line went dead, and the dispatcher at the other end put out the alert to officers: “Shots fired! Shots fired!”

Seven minutes later, another 911 call came from the same address, and a woman said: “I loved you with all my heart. It’s because of that b----. You traded me for her, Joe. I loved you.”

The quotes from court documents and a police dispatch log provided new details into the Thursday morning slayings of Joseph Andrew Gable, 48, and Sunday Cooley Bennett, 50, at Gable’s home. Gable’s estranged wife, Michelle Coller Gable, appeared in court Friday to face two counts of deliberate homicide.

HILLIARD, Ohio

A mechanic was the one doing the surgery at an Ohio animal facility when a woman drove in with a cat stuck behind her minivan’s dashboard.

WBNS-TV reports the mechanic had to take apart the dash during a three-hour rescue operation Thursday in the Columbus suburb of Hilliard.

Driver Nehal Dhruve says she hit the cat with her van and decided to take it to the local humane society. The brown and black cat wouldn’t stay on the van’s seat but instead hopped down and climbed up under the dashboard.